Biometrically based electronic signatures for a public networked environment

Signatures are internationally used as a method to sign documents. This ensures that a person signing a document agrees to the terms as stipulated in the document. A signature is biometric in nature, and is usually directly related to the signing party. This paper explains in what way biometric data1 can be used to digitally sign a document. Currently, the electronic signing of a document relies on the PKI environment, which is in essence based on passwords [7]. Passwords, unlike biometrics, are not physically part if the user, and hence, only authenticates the presented password as authentic, and not the user presenting the password. This paper defines a digital signature of a message M, as a key-based hash H [5], [6] of message M, where the key used is absolutely unique to the creator (owner) of the specific signature. To verify the digital signature, this absolutely unique key, belonging to the creator, must be available and be used. The whole process is based on the BioVault protocol [1], [2]. This protocol utilizes any form of biometric technology as the fundamental authenticator of a user.